The Gauntlet of Spiders

Ok, I know Ive blogged about this before, but I cannot stress enough of how I HATE HATE HATE spiders. My husband knows this and uses any chance he gets to torture me about it. If I scream, "SPIDERRRRRR!" from anywhere in the house, he knows his instant and mandatory duty is to jump up and kill it for me. We've been married for 10 years - its always been this way - it will never change. Yet every time before he dutifully makes his way to the spider in question, he asks, "How big is it??" As if knowing this bit of information makes a difference in his job. It doesnt matter! Its a spider! THEY ARE ALL BIG!

Im driving home tonight and I notice a ugly blonde spider crawling on my dash board and I know then I have a choice. Troy is not with me and I doubt as much as I beg her to, Jubilee is not going to get out of her carseat and kill a spider for me while I keep my eyes on the road. So I can either ignore it and let the spider go on its happy way while I drive safely down the road, OR... I can whimper and try to squirm away from the spider who is inching closer and closer to me. Guess which one I chose? Thats right, I squealed like a little girl stuck in a room full of...well, spiders. I dont know how, but I didnt run off the road or hit any pedestrians. I dont even remember looking at the road. All I know is there was a spider and he was getting closer to me. I wanted to pull off the road, jump out and flag down the nearest car for someone to save me and my little girl who was still stuck in the van with the huge venomous spider who Im sure was planning my demise. But, I didnt want to over-react.

By this time I suppose I was whimpering and whining so much that Jubilee was asking, "Mommy? ...doing?" I said, "Theres a spiderrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!" "A spiiider???" She asks this question not as I would have. As if by spider I meant horrible meat eating beast about to attack my brain thru my eyeballs.... No, she asks in a sweet little voice, "Spiiider?? I want see!" *blinks* There is no way I am going to pull over and show my daughter this spider for a cute little life lesson about bugs.

I start to brainstorm...ok..what can I do... Soon that spider is going to touch me. I take the extra hair scrunchee I have around my gear shift, (like every smart girl has), and with every brave fiber in my being that I could muster up...I threw the scrunchee at the spider. Ok, Ok, I know a scrunchee is not known for its mortal wounding capabilities, but MAYBE, just maybe I could push it away from me a little. And it worked! He fell to the floor.....still not dead - damn scrunchee - but hes farther away from me. Im not far from home at this point and think I can make it home while I keep one eye on the road and one eye on the spider. Then I notice some movement on the windshield. I look close and there it is.... A SECOND SPIDER!

At this point Im telling myself to breathe. There is two! This could only mean there is a conspiracy against me. They have a team! They have a nest! OMG, they have a PLAN!

Instantly memories flood my brain of when I was a small child. Going to Lake Sutherland happy and excited to go swimming...heading to the dock in my cute little rainbow bikini. Running to the diving board and jumping into the water from as high as I could get and splashing into the cool water. It felt so good and it was so fun... I had to get back on that diving board so I swam as fast as I could to the ladder up to the dock. I surfaced up on the platform and felt funny...itchy...tingly.... I look down and my body is COVERED in baby spiders!!! All strewn together with web and not falling off me no matter how hard I shook my body... Finally I flung myself back into the water to get them off, but it was too late. I had already been scarred for life.

So there I am in my van facing two of the spiders whom I am positive are decendents of the ones I obviously failed drowning so long ago and I cant hold it together any more. I cant pull over because Im sure if I jump out they will jump on me and wont be able to get away quick enough. And we were for sure not near any body of water I could jump into. So I did what any Mom would do faced with the imminent danger of herself and her baby. I grabbed Jubilee's Dora the Explorer umbrella and I beat those two spiders repeatedly until I saw guts and knew they were dead. I was so proud of myself and I dont even care what I looked like flailing a Dora umbrella around while driving.

You would think this unfortunate event was enough spider interaction for one day. Oh no...not for me. I get home and get Jubilee out of the van, and she is still talking about the gore. "Ewwwwwwww! smooooshed spider!" We make our way to the enclosed sidewalk in front of our house and I look up.... What do I see, but TWO icky spiders nests. There were open and baby spiders were all slithering over eacher in two separate patches right above where we had to walk to get into the front door. No way. Im not doing it again. I cant just ignore them. I cant muster up enough in me to kill them and there is NO way I am walking under them just to have them fall on me, crawl in my ears and lay more eggs. NO WAY. I scoop Jubilee up and go around to the back where we can safely enter the house. Thank god that path is clear..otherwise we'd still be out there waiting for Troy to get home. And as soon as he does, he's going on spider duty.